Post navigation

Our old friend Jurassic Pork posted a fantastic rant at his blog, as a response to the following GOProud tweet:

JP’s post, if it were a TV show, would be rated “TV-M: L/S” – “contains adult language and sexual situations” – but here’s a bit of his lead-in to probably the single most comprehensive commentary EVER concerning gay Republicans:

“GOProud, the conservative gay rights organization…decided at their soiree today in between privately making fun of the busboy uniforms and hotel decor, that we and not the right they try to represent are the enemy, the “we” being “teh Left.”

The PBS show Need To Know has replaced the horrible Jon Meacham with Maria Hinojosa, former co-host of NOW. Bill Moyers has a show again. Obama is President, PBS moves back to the left?

GOProud is just Republicans who believe their checkbook can overcome any problems being gay might present. They are no different than the rich woman who, upon discovering she is pregnant, simply books a flight to France, and upon arriving, obtains an RU-486 prescription and solves her problem. Establishment Republicans court the radical religious zealots for political and economic power. Once you get that wealthy, sexual orientation is irrelevant. So they can afford to be members of a political party that is anti-gay and anti-choice.

I seem to have noticed programing on NPR shifting with the political winds.
Lately there seems to be a lot of filler stories; shallow, nattering “human interest” pieces that are benign, non-controversial and don’t have much to say.

There is a right leaning show “Tell Me More” hosted by Michel Martin. Many of the guests on this show are extreme right wingers and she never challenges their lies. She tries to counter the right with moderate lefties. I use to listen to this show and after hearing her recent guests, the right vs the extreme right, I got tired of the soap opera and I no longer listen.

Looking back, and at my listening habits, I need to acknowledge that I lost interest in NPR while living in New Mexico, for the reason I mentioned above. There were fewer of the more in depth programs there.
Here in Oregon there is a broader spectrum of progressive programs, but I haven’t gotten back into the habit of regular listening, and as such I am not current with my observations.
For the presence, or lack of, specific and more comprehensive programming suggests a regional manipulation.

There are a ridiculous number of radio stations broadcasting OPB. At some point, when I’m thoroughly bored, I’ll time how long it takes to read off the list on the hour. A fair number of the stations are in Shitkickersvilles throughout rural Oregon, which is a little weird.

Need to Know did a piece on food stamps. If it’s available at the PBS site, it’s worth watching. They were debunking the Gingrich claim that Obama is ‘the food stamp president’. The only minority interviewed was a Tennessee state employee working in food stamp administration, whose salary was low enough, she also qualified for food stamps. She was single with two kids and made $19k a year.

Google romney (rom-ney) v.
1. To defecate in terror.
Thanks to Chris Hayes for the mention. Dogs will get their revenge, finally.
David Letterman, almost nightly, asks how can somebody who would do something so vile ever be considered for president.

I put that on Twitter. Everybody should read it. I used to tend bar in a near Cabrini Green projects in Chicago and had to get change at the currency exchange. I had worked at a hospital there that treated the most gun shot wounds in Chicago. But it was those trips to the currency exchange that taught me how difficult it is to be poor. Paying extra for checks, payments to utilities, stamps, everything. Made me really sad how unfair life is.

My dad owned and ran a pharmacy near the projects in Richmond. To me, being poor is always pricing your prescription before having it filled. My beloved father, the best christian I’ve ever known, would lie about the price if he sensed the person couldn’t pay the real amount.

From June until December I have been paying for prescriptions without insurance. Getting prices without insurance is easy. I tried to get pricing information based on my new insurance and was told, we can’t give you a price until we fill the prescription. How do I know what I can afford if I can’t check prices first? How do I know the place across the road isn’t ten bucks cheaper? So much for being a ‘responsible, cost conscious consumer of health services’. No one in health care can give you a straight answer on costs, either. It’s too intangible when medical treatment has to be tailored to the individual.

Not too long ago I was waiting in line to pick up a prescription and the woman ahead of me was picking one up for Amoxicillin. It was in liquid form and she was somewhere in her late 20’s so I figured it was for her child. It was only $15 but she had a baggy out and was counting change and it became clear she was going to be short. The pharmacist was looking a little distressed but it was also clear the policy wouldn’t allow her to do much to help.

I dug out a $20 and reached down to the ground and then handed it to the woman saying, “Ma’am, I think you dropped this.” The emotions that ran across her face before she smiled and said thank you was something no one should ever have to see but the smile at the end was worth it.

Trying to get a raise in grade and pay from my supervisor (passive-aggressive type, leads by intimidation), and failing, I said I’m going to have to take quality of life into consideration, and look elsewhere for a job.
He bristled, and said “Quality of life, what’s that mean?”
I replied simply, “Oh, environmental stuff…”
He blustered even more, and said “Environmental? What, don’t you like the weather here?”
I responded “Environment is a very broad concept.”
There was an interesting play of emotions across his face, as he got what I was saying… before he turned back to his computer, effectively dismissing any further conversation.

Soon being poor will mean that you must rebut the presumption that you use drugs, even though everyone who has ever had a child in an expensive private school knows drug use is much more prevalent among those who can afford to buy the drugs.

Santorum on Face the Nation, explaining his ‘phony theology’ statement in a part of a speech about Obama.

Santorum: “I was talking about the radical environmentalists, that’s when I was talking about energy, this idea that man is here to serve the earth,as opposed to husband it’s resources and be good stewards of the earth. I think that is a phony ideal, I don’t believe that that’s what we’re here to do. That man is here to use the resources and use them wisely, to care for the earth, to be a steward of the earth, but we’re not here to serve the earth, the earth is not the objective, man is the objective, and I think a lot of radical environmentalists have it upside down.”

Schieffer: “How does that translate into some sort of theology that, the President’s theology is not based on the bible? That suggests that he’s not a Christian.”

Santorum: “I wasn’t suggesting the President’s not a Christian. I accept the fact that the President’s a Christian. I just said that when you have a worldview that elevates the earth above man, and says that we can’t take those resources because we’re going to harm the earth, by things that frankly are just not scientifically proven, for example the politicization of the whole global warming debate. I mean this is just all an attempt to, to centralize power and to give more power to the government.”

“I just said that when you have a worldview that elevates the earth above man, and says that we can’t take those resources because we’re going to harm the earth, by things that frankly are just not scientifically proven, for example the politicization of the whole global warming debate. ”

After all, it’s a proven fact that the earth was created for man. After all, man has been here since the beginning…well, except for the first five days – when God was getting the earth ready for man by making the heavens, and the stars and the sun and the moon, and separating the dry land from the waters and creating all the plants and fishes and birds and land animals so that man would have plenty to eat.

“Being poor is having to live with choices you didn’t know you made when you were 14 years old.”

Actually, it’s having to live with choices you made when you were 8 or 9. That’s the time when reading an math really come together for a kid. Some kids choose not to put in the effort. That choice dooms them. I’ve heard that 4th grade standardized test scores are used to predict how many new prisons will have to be built – they are that good a predictor for prison population by the time those kids turn 18 – and it takes about that long to build a new prison.

Education is the key, but the ruling class does not want a well-educated populace. Keep them poor, keep them uneducated, and keep them divided – fighting amongst themselves on issues that are irrelevant to maintaining the wealth and power of the ruling class. That has worked for centuries, with only the occasional rebellion.

Newt doubles down on the crazy and claims that he will drill our way to lower gas prices. Will these freaks ever acknowledge that oil production has gone up dramatically during Obama’s administration? Will they ever realize that the current increase has NOTHING to do with our record high domestic production? And did he climb in a Volt with a tape measure? I bet that one could easily put a gun rack in a Volt.

Of course, I’m also willing to bet that most potential Volt owners place a very small value on a gun rack. Personally, I think gun racks are stupid. It’s illegal to fire a gun from a vehicle and displaying one’s weapon where any common thief can see it is rather stupid too. It only took replacing one hideously expensive electric window to convince me that the best bet is to leave nothing valuable in one’s car and leave the doors unlocked.

Thanks, house. As you may have noticed; the blog has been dormant for almost five years so I’m not really fishing for comments there. It’s just a mechanism to upload vids. Frankly, I would rather just discuss the content here.

The haters were out today. Driving through a small coastal town, there were a couple of guys on the highway with signs. I didn’t catch the first one, but the second one said:
“Obama Murder on Demand”
Guessing he was a pro-lifer or some such, I gave him a big thumbs down gesture.
After a day on the beach, and noticing an inordinate amount of people still about as I passed back through the same town; getting my groceries I asked the retiree-aged clerk if it was a holiday or something.
He replied “It’s Presidents Day weekend” and then muttered “But I don’t work for the president.”
I stood there a moment, and he looked at me a little uncomfortably, wondering if maybe he had made a inappropriate comment. I looked at his bald (and shaven) head, and asked “Are you a skinhead?”
Honestly, they make it so easy for me sometimes.

Odd, because this particular burg has a well known reputation as a liberal enclave.
I figure the protesters were from out of town, come to make trouble on the weekend, then split. The store clerk did catch me by surprise though.

That might be the most frustrating part. They aren’t an intellectual challenge. They are infantile. Of course, there are few things harder than dealing with an infant on a logical level. Most sane adults, including myself, have simply forgotten the frame of reference needed to interact with them.

Indeed. It’s sad that so many can be categorized by their mental defects. Compartmentalization, confirmation bias, Dunning-Kruger effect etc. Call it what you will; there’s a severe lack of common ground between us and them.

There’s a little spot on one of my favorite trout streams that displays a similar effect, on a much smaller scale, just before sunset. I have found that the interplay of water, sound, and light has great curative powers.

I finally had a chance to play with it in the music studio and the results were very encouraging. We have the stage lights set up so I got to really push the boundaries of lighting. And the microphone isn’t half-bad. It was strictly experimental so I didn’t really get anything worth sharing but I think I will probably be enlisted to shoot some of my friends’ professional performances. As long as they drive and buy my beer it should be fun!